Disclaimer: This is NOT the beginning of the story, despite this being called "Episode 1". There was a 4-chapter Prologue before this that provides a lot of necessary info. Go to my profile to find it easily.
Note: We're now entering the meat of the story. Although each of these 5 episodes have their own distinct plots, they're all connected. You can't just treat them as standalone stories, because the end of each episode leaves things unfinished for the next to continue. Episode 1 isn't the most ambitious in the characters and setting, but it sets the stage for the rest of this story.
I'd also like to mention that I wrote a "behind-the-scenes" for the Prologue, in case you're interested. While it's not on FF and AO3, it is on DA, linked at the bottom of the final chapter of the Prologue. It explains things about the story like what inspired what, how things have changed from brainstorming to final product, some insight into the mechanics of the story itself, and descriptions of the OCs and their purposes/the processes it took to design them.
Chapter 1: The Sunset Bustle (~17k words)
Sling!
Time slows as the spinning top rips out and into the epic coliseum. On its fine tip it laps the arena spiraling inwards, the purple plastic gleaming in the stadium lights atop the metallic torso of the object. There it parades in glory in the very center, alone to relish in the praise of the adoring fans.
"'Awesome Possum' has entered the field!" the grand announcer narrates. "Our rad crowned princess is takin' the STAAAAAGE!"
The crowd hollers a prolonged cheer.
Sling!
But from the opposite side, a challenger approaches. Sky blue reflections of the bright purple top in its sights come off its surface, locked and fierce on the competitor. The slender black hexagon pinned in the center supported its refined, well-balanced structure, spinning tough and powerful as it speeds steadily down the dome.
"Ooooo, and it's today's challengeeer!" comes the announcer. "It's strong, it's a mighty fortress, it's… 'ShowstoppEEEEER'!"
Making it halfway to Awesome Possum at the lowest point of the bowl, Showstopper begins circling the enemy, the competitor being smaller in stature yet oh so big in willpower. Showstopper traces along the orange ring to enclose it with a neon blue trail following behind. Still, the defensive wall created around Awesome Possum insisted on staying back from any significant effort. Mixed reactions come from that same crowd, on the edge of seats waiting for the riveting action to begin.
The announcer continues stimulating the audience. "Prepare yourselves for the PB cracker clash of a LIFETIME!"
Commanding Awesome Possum is Heather, mountainous beside the arena. "A.P., show 'em what you've got!" A mauve aura flames bright from her body and absorbs her in her own inner energy once she shoots an arm forward. "ELECTRIC CHOOORD!"
Energized sparks release from the tip of Awesome Possum before launching itself out the gap of the ring left behind by Showstopper's path to break free from its grasp. With both tops free-roaming past each other's circuits, A.P. makes the bold first move.
"And now, the battle has truly begun!" the announcer confirms in zest. "Winner takes ALL the peanut butter crackers they can eat!"
There was the call. The great, glorious gong of peanut butter crackers had officially been sounded. With the boost of adrenaline and determination comes Heather's stiffly crossed arms, face alighted. The flame from her body flares stronger. "Like, hit it now, A.P.!"
From the vibrant fanfare generated by an electric guitar, crackling bolts of lightning spray out in all directions from its metal shell and zip around as they please. Some stray dangerously close to the conductive figure of Showstopper, still refusing to leave its patrol despite the oncoming offense. Stemming from the circumference of A.P. comes 4 long Y-guitars pierced right through the electric core protected by the shiny, intricate framework. All strings on every guitar power up as the top follows an arc inward to enter the danger zone without hesitation.
Reaching the trajectory of attack, strings vibrate to prepare launch towards the impenetrable pillar that was Showstopper's tall form. And launch it does, darting in quicker than a bolt of lightning such as those flying about. The smooth, circular rim of Showstopper comes into contact in an instant, immediately generating an immense electric force accentuated by the dramatic string of a guitar chord. The guitars circling A.P. all strike at the enemy in turn, each hit making a metallic clanking from every attempt to penetrate its superior stubbornness. The strings in full ready mode, one menacing disc of electric power manifests itself atop A.P. and shoots itself at Showstopper to throw it back across half the stadium.
Stamina remains firm, to Ozzie's grand expectations. Yet how could he not be in awe at the first hit as he gazes over from the opposite side? "Grrreat peanut butter crackers!" he exclaims. "Showstopper…" An identical aura of light blue bursts straight from his soul. "PHANTOM OPERA!"
Showstopper vanishes in a twinkling, purple puff of smoke just like that. Residue of the glitter following the mysterious poof floats to the floor.
"WWWWWHAT?!" the announcer roars, rolling the 'W' like the obnoxious buzz of a motor. "Can you bEliEvE this?! Showstopper has vanished!"
Heather's aura disappears in her sudden bewilderment. It doesn't take long for Showstopper to reveal itself, now holding down the dead center of the field and claiming superiority in the apex of the blinding lights beaming into the dome.
Ozzie's aura vastly overpowered Heather's. Following the reveal comes Ozzie's smug rejoicement: "It appears as though I have… STOLEN THE SPOTLIGHT!"
The spirit radiating off Ozzie transfers some of its energy to the top, a faint blue inferno surrounding Showstopper as it builds up defense. Silver rim emitting a lusty golden glow, it now solidifies its position in the bright spotlight now coming from above, A.P. cruising the arena to search for an opening.
Of course, the announcer is more baffled than anyone. "What's this?! The spotlight is giving Showstopper some HUUUGE power!"
Heather gasps in shock, torso bent forward to urgently spectate Showstopper's rising might. The spotlight only feeds it the attention of the audience, fortifying the barrier created from Ozzie's own strength to shield it inside an unbreakable column of light shooting its beacon up into the abyss of the faceless gray sky. The rowdy stadium encompassed all thoughts, all emotions shared across the transmission between conflicting minds. Only the open roof revealed all the meaningless ideas shrouded by one intense battle bidding away all other matters of attention. The crowd keeps cheering on, heating up the fierce competition going on inside the restraint of a single sphere surrounded by the swallowed realities taken over by the void.
Aura returning stronger than ever on Heather's being, she throws an arm back forward once again. "ELECTRIC CHORD!" she repeats.
Those same strings vibrate explosively before slinging A.P. straight at the intimidating wall protecting the low ground, one immense burst of lightning energizing A.P.'s rapid spinning motion. The pink guitars become a blur, golden gleam of the thin strings illuminating the top turning it into a rockstar cyclone.
Like a spinning blade it clashes into Showstopper's durable barrier as a foolish little attempt to change its defensive ways. Sparks from the constant pressure fly at high velocities off each guitar, the ear-splitting ugliness of grinding guitar strings cringing Heather's face and sending a sharp sting pounding down the tubes of her ears.
Ozzie growls between clenched jaws, forehead throbbing at every pulse of energy sent from the depths of his pupils to fuel the spotlight maintaining his dominance over the one in his control. All his focus is put into Showstopper, the remarkable resistance produced by his very will now hideously snapping the strings off A.P.'s guitars in a painful 1-by-1 process.
And just then, the head of a guitar snaps clean off. Heather watches the aggressive glow die down to a dim flicker, velocity cut down by half and permanently imbalancing the spin of her top. A quake from the barrier shoves A.P. back to wobble on the ground nearby. Snapped right off! And the tip of A.P. rattles on the surface. Ready to stumble down. Ready to back off.
One could probably guess who commented next in the dismay, and they'd certainly guess right at that. "Awesome Possum has taken a HUUUGE hit!"
By contrast, Heather's tall stance threatens a new level of intensity in her approach, determined to break through the barrier. Now or never, ain't it? "TAIL TORNADO!"
"STAGE STRRRIKE!" Ozzie yells back.
Each attack of A.P. slams itself again and again into the shield as it orbits the dome, every counterattack of Showstopper killing all momentum in the assault.
"FISH SANDWICH LLLEAP!"
"ALAS, I'VE RUN OUT OF NAAAMES!"
Showstopper refuses to leave its post, looking to sustain its inherent authority rather than desire more. A.P., on the other hand, keeps pushing for the end of its uphill battle (or rather, downhill in this case), striving for a change of the tides without the strength of a moving fortress needed to set the moon off course. That same moving fortress standing deftly before it doesn't flinch itself, stamina indefinite. But mutual invigoration flows in the jousting, even through the harshest duels for peanut butter crackers.
Making the rumbling fanfare of a final hurrah, the entire stadium is filled to the brim by Heather's cinematic voice. "ROCK THE SHOOOOOWWW!"
Heather's entire aura transfers right over to A.P., slamming tops together with enough power to knock Showstopper off its place. Both forces push hard against the other, never giving in.
"AAAAAAAAAA-!" Ozzie screams.
"AAAAAAAAAAAA-!" Heather screams.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-!" they both… scream.
Two sagging masses of gray have themselves seated on opposite ends of the miniature plastic 'arena', if it could even be recognized as such. The thin base was filled with tiny cracks from prolonged use, a side depressed even slightly enough to offset the low center by a crawl. Bodies slumped in to spectate the tops listlessly, Heather's yawn only briefly resumes activity, lifting her head off the support of the hand propping it up.
Heather's top sluggishly and senselessly meanders its way down the slope of the bowl to Ozzie's, firm and balanced in guard of the center. One itty clink of rim against rim peaks their interest, tightening expressions and raising eyebrows. 'Oh?' the eyes say. Stuttering away, Heather's top trips and tumbles back following the collision, slowing to an awkward, lopsided contact with the floor. A final touch puts the purple top in the grave, freeing the two from the incredible tension certainly displayed in half-woken faces.
Ozzie bounces to the comets when he gets onto his feet, arms thrusting the surrounding air away in the explosion of a triumphant, long-fought victory! "WOO-HOO! Ah-hah! Shower me with roses as I bow before the crowd!"
While Ozzie is busy enjoying the standing ovation in the foreground just a tad too much, the palm of one hand curtly pushes up a cheek of Heather's, the other pinching a wrapper of plastic riddled with orange cracker crumbs. "Shower me with peanut butter crackers…" Her voice stops the embracement illustrated by his great, glorious bows. "Dad, I get you're havin' fun 'n all, but like… when're we gettin' somethin' new, y'know?"
"Hmm?" Ozzie settles down, having snagged his own pack of crackers from the tan drawstring bag.
"Like, while we were havin' the time of our LIVES sittin' here, I was thinkin, like…" An airy laugh enters. "We've been here a LOOONG time, right?"
The tick-tick between Ozzie's teeth make up for the watch just now found to be absent on his arm. "Mmmmm, only half an hour…"
She continues without a care to acknowledge his misinterpretation. "Like, with RJ here, it's like we've gone everywhere, without goin' anywhere." There was a point there - their butts were already complying to the latter half of that sentence. Nothing in the scenery changes, every colorful object gathered being familiarly newfound. The end comes with one passionate question: "Am I the only one who thinks that's weird?"
Very smooth and relaxed in tone, the pacific coast of Ozzie's sea blows a wind as he gets up to pace past her. "Well, we don't quite travel like we used to, do we? However...-"
Deep and raspy in his monotone voice through a speaker, Open Wound completes what Ozzie had started. "WE have heeeld this hideout for years. It's OUR haven in hell."
Bits of lemonade splash out the white plastic cups once they bump lightly against each other with a thonk, refreshing ice cubes wobbling within. The purple throne at the TV set was entirely vacant, however, leaving the radiance of the screen to reflect onto a dull material. No, it took a look to the left to find the liveliness. Stella and Tiger have their weight sunk into a large, luxurious red cushion just offset from the center, resting in front of the large cooler still dormant behind. While the box of Cheese Squares from the last outing had been tipped over and spilled onto the ground, the two remained lavish in the enclosure of the golden lining of the cushion's edge, treated refreshingly to some beverages… and each other.
Tiger, relaxed on his side, had his head raised up on level with the screen. Focused on Stella, he pulls his cup of lemonade back to his face, sleek movements falling between the path from grin to grin. "Tell me, Stella: What do you call a paradise?"
On her side just the same, one leg laxly over the other followed the curve of her body up to Stella's propped-up head finishing a sip like sharing a good wine. She finds time to outline the steps: "Take some ol' place, crank up da TV, 'n find some folks tuh pass out da snacks!"
Angry ramblings of Open Wound carry on from the TV, Tiger's ears blocking out the heated distraction merging with his pleasant speech. "It's a paradise in itself! I've never been so at home with your feral friends."
"Home's just a place, ain't it?" Stella suggests the contrary. "We're talkin' wut, not who."
"Hmph. I suppose you're right." He flicks a paw at the cramped space between them on the cushion. "But what do I call this? What do I call you?"
The bushy fur of Stella's tail brushes against his leg. "Y'know wut yuh call me. Us got us. Don't need no home for dat, do we Tig'uh?"
One stray gunshot lights up the TV for a split second, beaming onto her face. And Tiger looks at her, nothing of the home distracting his working senses away from the jewel presented before him. Captivation grows mightier, softer. Both get drawn further in, attention unwavering from the sight they had treated themselves to. Stella takes occupation on the straw coming out of her cup. And Tiger finds himself sipping right back.
Frantically, the nature of Verne's tone is ironic in its lack of calming effect. "Now, Spike, just sit still-!"
Quills lodged in the shaded side of the Log so far that his back presses against the bark, he whines, "They're meeeeeeaaaaan!"
Suppressed snorts escape out of Bucky and Quillo, heads jiggling in the near bursts of laughter both were emitting. They're silenced once Penny approaches from behind them and puts a hand on the top of both their heads, ending the twitching movements. Quillo slaps Bucky's arm, the latter being late to the memo.
Lou and Verne each take one of Spike's arms as his lips quiver away. "Now, steady there," Lou advises. Both half-commit to tugs in preparation to get themselves in sync. "One… twooo…"
A yank tears Spike right out of the Log - at least, most of it. The tension in Verne's shut eyes makes a full 180 and bursts them wide open at the splintering cracks heard in an abrupt tear of the wood. A board of bark, still impaled by Spike's spiky quills, pulls a gasp right from his throat. Head jolting to the left, the first sight to make presence lacks substance at all… a hideous hole left permanent in the side of the Log, scraps from the messy interior of the bark scattered like shards of shattered glass. While Lou is left alone to pluck Spike out, Verne's first concern is the new damage inflicted on the child of his own.
He runs a hand along the perimeter of the gap, feeling the texture of the aged bark unable to ever be restored to its former glory. The latest scar wasn't the first the Log had endured - other scrapes and bruises aplenty defined its elder state. It was honestly a miracle the thing hadn't ever caved in on itself long ago… a sneeze could probably take it down. Verne stares at it, just slowly shaking his head to accentuate the new pain in his frown. One day closer...
"WEE-WOO WEE-WOO!" screams the siren from far down the Hedge, activating a signal inside everyone's heads to put an end to the sunset bustle.
Consider Verne alerted. "Who-?"
A transmission from the static radio down the tubes of Heather's ears perk up near Ozzie. Tribal communication methods relay the message back to sender: "Wee woo wee woo?!"
Ozzie's head pops out not far from the area. "Wee woo wee who?"
"Dad, there's a wee woo wee woo."
Hammy's extreme lack of breath doesn't falter his ability to be the battery for the national emergency alert system. "WEE-WOO WEE-WOO, BIG TRUCKS! BIG TRUCKS!" A frantic birdie in a wildfire powers the waving arms stemming from his body.
Stella's entire face twitches, the smash on the power button darkening her rigid lips ready to explode out some not-so-T-rated things.
"Pack it up! Gather 'round!" Muscles tense, an offset step of RJ's leg puts his back into view opposite the group. Grabby toes clench onto the earth and drag back on the uneasy skin of the dirt. "Verne…"
Everything stops.
"We have a problem."
"And an overused reference!" Heather mentions.
"But mostly a problem." RJ's announcement expresses low solemnity - so much so as to spark startlement from such a decision. 5 words, routine in individual connotations, force more progressive effort out of him than a heisting act itself. "Hold off on the heist."
"Oh daaang," Stella whispers to Tiger alone, reactions up and ready at the body's rise. The blood flows warm and unsteady from head to toe. "Now the 'coon's serious."
Episode 1: Man vs. Nature
RJ pushes past the others to slam the new map right in the center of the bulletin board and hammer it in with a pin, atop the other papers documenting every journey into the world now threatening to consume their own.
Irony let's it be that Verne is the first to tromp his way into the scene. Just a brief, brisk jog has him needing to catch his breath in front of RJ's new find, pinned high as could be for all to see. "RJ, what's going on?"
The others catch up, gathering close in concern just as instructed. The Hedge provided a natural guard from the heat of the air - a damp panel reflecting a shaded wall of green off the intersection at the bottom corner. All inside, under the stiff shoulders of the Hedgies, remains dormant in its warm, cool presence.
"Good news: Cave's empty," RJ says.
Against the tips of the jagged leaves topping the stronghold and the sharp edges of the triangular rooftops kept within, a force remained creeping over. Its radiance threatened with the gaze of a fierce chroma - orange, yellow, red. The clouds took the softest blows of the consuming tint, leaving a craving for more. The heads clump into the next easy target, soaking up the remnants of the flaming orb's wrath. No one manages to clear up the uncertainty RJ was presenting.
"Bad news: Our schedule is not."
Flurried movements of a neanderthal express the refusal to enter the doors of RJ's cinematic funhouse. "Look, we just lost a wagon-load of food," Verne rants. "And YOU'RE Twinkie dump isn't getting any smaller. WHAT is it now-?!"
A vague shape invalidates the minute exaggerations once granting Verne the ability of speech - more than a deathly gasp, that is. Behind the funhouse stands just the ramparts of a hellish black structure, undefined by the eye. Though the top houses an unmissable pad of soul-lurching yellow. A warning. The crane in the bottom left of the map projected its path towards one landmark - not needed to be named. Here to expand for progression and vitality; here to sacrifice and destroy.
"Gee…" Stella breathes at a look for herself. "We got a big stooorm comin'..."
The kids cower behind the parents, despairful looks passing between one another. Penny pats Lou's shoulder, the pair left without meaningful words to speak that they never had in the first place. "I-I'll go calm the kids," she hesitates.
"I'll go calm myself," Lou joins.
"Why, are you certain?!" Tiger asks RJ. More fiery in reaction than Stella, his tightened eyebrows paint a whole new visage on his face.
"Look, the thing manifested itself at my feet," RJ explains deeply. "That means it's fate. And if it's faaate, we ain't got long to change it."
"Uh…" Ozzie's voice undergoes an entire arc from distress to disbelief in a second. "May I cash in my victory prize now?"
Another pack of peanut butter crackers tosses up from Heather to Ozzie, immediately comforting his stress-eating impulsion. A hurried chomp rips right through the wrapper to the goods.
"Woah…" Heather leans in towards an equally wide-eyed Hammy. Though, hers simmers down into indifference. Convenient in position, a house over the Hedge had the two obscured by the incinerator - bringer of life, lament, and a burning rage that fueled all motives of a capable, foolish man. "We gotta get out."
"Does that mean we get a new forest?" Hammy begs to know, a hair on an ear peeking over the shadow's rim to maintain only a loose connection to that which ensnared Verne's entire head.
"A new forest would be kinda sick, actually."
It roars. It rumbles. The bumps in the massive rubber tires disintegrate the spine of a feeble twig relaxed in the grass, snapping the victim in two. Though the engine overtakes all noise. The snap, the shrieks of the twig remain unheard as the unfathomable machine terrorizes all posing minor inconveniences to its plans. Rusted scraps off the slanted black and yellow lines painting the bottom edge suggested the war-torn condition of the thing. A twig would never be the first, nor the last.
"Now, my supreme raccoon senses are tellin' me…" RJ's club snaps itself onto the calendar to the right of the board. "We got THREE WEEKS to get our butts outta here."
"Wut makes yuh say that?" asks Stella.
"My supreme raccoon senses. Just said that."
Daggers inside the stump of a tree unsheath at the splintering force tearing the trunk apart. The deadly wheel, its wielder yet to be known, stops for nothing. It tears, and it tears, and with every crack of the tree it still tears some more, until one more irreversible gap is left in the skyline of the highest branches. Those daggers don't even pierce into the hollow rubber - they don't damage - and it is free to plow through the rich green and charming, rustic brown.
The final cracker makes it down Ozzie's throat. "Right after Heather's birthday…"
Heather snarks at the mention. "How'd you ever knooow it's my birthday?"
"My exceptional dad senses."
The wrecking ball drops hard onto the Log, tossing up storm clouds of dust and dirt to fill the air with the devastation of a lost relic. The fallen tree, skin left intact against the harshest of seasons and nature's own recycling squad, had left a hollow space to inhabit. The tunnel of protection and nurturing, circled by the most mystical fireflies right to falling snow all in a single year, made into a single second. Through hell's fire and freeze, now to be taken out just like that? Unthinkable. Unquestionable… was the need for a hard decision.
"Woah woah woah."
The foreign voice interjects on the conversation, Verne's sudden introduction unanticipated in every ear. "Now who said anything about leaving?"
"Me. Just said that," RJ repeats, a slight sag underneath the sockets of his eyes. "Our butts need to be got. Gotten. Outta here, that is."
Verne snags onto RJ's arm, yanking it tight in its place. "Show me this baloney, RJ," he demands. Though the final slimmer of the sun had bid farewell underneath the Hedge, little slips between the leaves of the high branches drew cracked veins throughout the forest floor.
Out of RJ's own will he agrees at the faces awaiting his compliance, pulling out the binoculars that had provided him the unsought knowledge just prior. Verne tapping an urgent foot, RJ flips it around to face the eyepieces towards the turtle.
And coming out the lenses is the image dreadful to endure. They watch in a row on the edge of the cliff yet another matured, elder tree plucked right out the rough soil across the main road.
Pesky muttering, speaking acquiescence, pokes at Verne's shell in overwhelming acceptance of the situation. The murder witnessed puts a grudge in Verne's cheek. A hunk of dirt is scooped by one mechanical arm tearing apart the earth. Roots of the final remaining plant life, namely grasses and smaller shrubs, fling about in a desperate ditch effort to cling back into the homely underground that had hugged them farewell one last time. In the puncture's place, a segment of a spotless metal pipe infects the very bloodstream of the land. Peep peep. Another poke.
"Look at this!" Verne lashes back in defense at the discouragement, binoculars dropped to the ground. "We can't just pick up and leave!"
The railroad between their minds remains functional as it always had. Stella sets sights on his old, dull shell. The unacknowledged imperfections in its shape spoke a history no lessons could tell. A story only remains authentic when spoken by the wiser - its genuinity deteriorates with every inexperienced reciter. But Stella's chin raises up. Not to a storyteller, but to a fellow. It all runs through her head, bouncing off the walls like stray molecules ready to fuse.
"Y'know wut?" she booms. "Yeah! That turtle's got a point, raccoon. This here's our turf!"
Tiger stares, bottom lip lingering in the waters of grave concern. That aura his love radiated shows itself to his senses - anosmia distributed its lost power to the greatest form of perception available: the brain. "Ar- Are you quite sure, Stella? We're the lowly ones in their world! A world that I had lived in… far too long."
"Am- Am I stutterin'? With dat mind, THIS home's good as gone. Our home!" Out of nowhere behind her back, a large red button, attached to a flat, circular base in the form of a saucer reveals in her hand. "Now, which one of yuh softies up for sum hard, bare FIGHTin'?!" A thumb smashes down, producing the low buzz of her verdict.
Buuuzzz.
Flung close to the ground, the button whizzes into the care of Tiger's front paw, halting it with light contact. "I see what must be done. I am up!" The joint in his elbow removes flexibility, the pad of his paw pressing valiantly on the plastic, rounded top.
Buuuzzz.
Rallied war cries come from the porcupine kids. In a chant, they alternate jumps on the button. "Fight! Fight! Fight! Fight!"
Buuu-
Buuu-
Buuuzzz.
Stella passes the spotlight. "Ain't dat right, Verne?"
It stumbles awkwardly in his hands at its transfer into his cautious hands. "Uh- uh yes. Yes! That's right!" Clearing his throat, firmness rings the bell. "We FIGHT!"
Verne twiddles his fingers and remains silent among the others during their "huzzah"s. He hesitantly and carefully taps the button, the buzz quieter in his delivery.
What the hell does he think he's gettin' into? RJ intrigues, knuckles in one hand straying further into visibility.
Hushed topics are relayed between Heather and Hammy criss-crossed facing each other in the back. Set of UNO cards readied in control of both casual players, RJ listens in from in front while attention is slowly shifted between the distinct groups.
There were no nut cards. That much was certain. Hammy chooses carefully from his hand, though no wrong move would pop the bubble surrounding him and Heather. "Can we build a treehouse?" he suggests, tamely enthusiastic.
7.
Over the thin white borders of her cards, she glances back. The imagery of such a treehouse, cut and crafted precisely from all the little Arnie's boxes they could collect, sparkles in the cloud above her dome. "Duhhh, dude. We're so gonna build a treehouse with RJ in that forest."
Reverse.
Among the racket thrown about by every face around him, Ozzie picks up one quiet yet energetic voice. It plays and jests his left ear, pulling it away from the crescendo building at the cliff's edge. He keeps his distance, taking an extra step back at the backwards slope of the hill to confine himself from the rest, tunnel-vision leaving not his center the focus, but the left corner. It was perfectly correlated - construction on his right, circling the harshness between the rallied, rowdy animals. His own sprouting seed on the left, significantly warmer in approachability, lacks the raging heat melting the rocks apart. He chooses the left to observe.
It was 2 friendly figures snuck behind RJ's back that turned the gears in his head, wiggling his fingers. "Let's make an entrance."
RJ's brisk wind brushes the fur on Heather's back as he runs back to pounce onto the trunk of the nearest tree, one limb after another working his way up. Heather pokes a card at Hammy, grinning larger. "Yo, this oughta be good."
Verne breaks free from his circle at the ruffling above releasing a scatter of leaves to float to the surface. One lands against the back of his neck, compelling him to flick it away and turn around to confront the disruptor. RJ. He rests on the thinnest, twistiest branch of the bunch, stretching far from the back of the hill to survey the globe below its perch. It wobbles at any and every movement, threatening to snap off even more so with RJ's self in responsibility.
RJ!..." Verne huffs. "I feel like you've got your RJ noggin in the clouds right now."
"Do I? Hah!" he laughs, waving high into the sky away from the intense situation. "Sorry, I just think I'm feelin' at home with the birds on this one."
The golf bag nearly crashes onto Verne like a boulder, bringing a fearful yelp in reaction. The same who was ready to fight, and ready to lose. RJ leaps off the wobbly end of the branch, bouncing off like a diving board. Up to the map to the right of the bag he runs, still pinned onto the bulletin board they must've dragged all the way out here.
"You see that, folks?" he directs, a finger swaying from the arrow headed their way down to the crane, faint at the back corner of the Hedge. "That's a red arrow of DEATH. Which we could avoid if we just did the LOGICAL thing-"
Verne snatches the map from his shrugged arm. "Which we could PREVENT if we worked together…"
That's when Stella makes no subtlety coming up to finger-stab RJ's chest 23 times. "So, Mist'uh 'Smart Guy', you SCARED of these fellas?"
"Do I sound scared to- Ah, shoot." Rummaging through the bag brings out the big guns - a white megaphone, its handle almost ungraspable by a raccoon's hands. Quick adjustments to the volume go underway before its ringing blast is directed right at Stella, jetting her hair back far enough to uncover her eyes. "Do I sound scared to you, Stella?"
After the screech of his voice into her ears ends, Stella scrambles her hair into its former place, thrown about the top of her head and over her eyes. "Ain't no proof." Stomping forward in objection with hips routinely taken by her fists, the foot wishes it could crush RJ's own. A couple strands of grass keep toes from touching, raccoon-foot pancakes being reserved for another day. "Ain't no nothin'!"
Tiger's countenance expresses the unattainable urge to prevent her from travelling any farther down the scorching descent into the flames. "Stella…"
"Ya want proof?" RJ blurts, megaphone finally held down to speak on earth with her. "I got proof. I'm fuuull o' proof."
Verne doesn't get the chance to snag RJ away from his path to the edge of the cliff, setting a beacon above the perch to all who could see below. RJ arches his back in a stout posture, fist on a hip. No reservation exiting through the megaphone, that leaves only RJ's announcement:
"Attention! Fat man in the overalls!"
All humans below look his way. That beast of a man, brown jungle of a beard tinted with the orange glow of the sunset, drops his large black phone to squint at the megaphone-wielding raccoon ruling atop the cliff.
"Yeah YOU!" A finger thrusts forward at that very beard (if it could even be identified as one). "Ever deal with your own forest ya got there?! 'Cause I've seen WILDFIRES dealt with cleaner than you-!"
Snatch. Nervous hand gestures follow Verne's seizure of the megaphone, shoving RJ away in the process. "Uhh-h, he didn't say that! Go back to your, uh… do-dee-dooo's! Heh."
"Now what we're they sayin'-" a crew member only briefly starts.
"JUST some raccoon with a MEGAphone, Jerry!" the big man in charge returns. The screeching clanks of a jackhammer on rocky terrain impair the comprehensibility of his stentorian voice by 0 degrees. A megaphone of his own forces Jerry to plug his ears in a desperate effort to reduce the inevitable medical bill resulting from such an injury. "BACK TO WORK! We gotta clear 5 more acres by MONDAY! Step it up! I wanna see that timber QUIVER!"
"Am I the only one usin' my BRAIN here?!" RJ continues.
"Nope, you're the only one using it wrong," Verne retorts with his group of Stella, Tiger, and the porcupines. Ozzie merely lingers somewhere in the middle-ground.
RJ naturally slouches back to Heather and Hammy sourly, removing them from the crowd busying themselves in Verne's leadership, conversing with some obscured ranting toned out by RJ's ears.
"What now, Uncle RJ?" Hammy mumbles, upper body left to comply with gravity's will in the absence of certainty.
Hopeless frowns only spring RJ's spirits back into action, both loyal members swung tight in the grasp of corresponding arms. The cheeks on their faces squish up against his sides. "Not get the gist? We're packin' our bags, folks!"
Grins spread like the happiest disease ever to be known.
The bulb of the lamp above the purple armor around its stand illuminates the darkness overtaking the grassy floor. The nearby trunk of a tree faces the same exposure, leaving that white glow to create a dome of brightness, distinct and solitary from any business encompassing the area. The space leaves room for all objects of color, plastic surfaces and other artificial materials alike. But some associates to these gadgets and ornaments organize themselves in a circle around a sheet of vibrant charting… and danger: 3 furry figures, one color coat unlike the others. Their shapes and statures immediately identify them among any others.
Heather stares very intently at the old raccoon plush off a little ways. Black tail silently crawling around its bum in the cover of the grass shrouded by the night, she slowly drifts it over against her hip.
RJ drops a king, queen, and knight onto their newfound map.
"RJ." An explosive sneeze of a split-second whisper is uttered from the tiny space between Heather's lips. Rest assured - if it could be written in tiny text, it would.
RJ tilts his head down and raises an eyebrow on his squinted face. The stuffed doppelganger, small legs bent inward to replicate Heather's criss-crossed posture, swaps his view back and forth between them. Heather remains just as motionless as the toy, teeny hands locked in her lap. A finger of RJ's comes back to the board with another knight.
Suddenly, from Heather's other side, Hammy decides to make a presence. Issue being the blaring volume. "Which knight am I?!"
At least Heather's had at least been considerate of the time of day. Bursting in comes his voice, startling RJ and locking him in place, further stretching the corners of his mouth. Before placing down the 2nd knight, it slogs off to have its spotlight stolen by a fresh bishop. Sending fingers gracefully flying away leaves the 4 pieces tumbling onto the map.
He clears his throat, throwing an energetic finger. "Hammy! Atmosphere."
The white, oval sound machine off to the side rocks and rattles at the slap of Hammy's hand. A smooth drum roll leads into a casual bongo melody.
RJ points at the pieces piled onto the target, jumbled and unpredictable. "We… are here." He then proceeds to slam a rook onto the crane symbol at the bottom. "This… is the Hell Hand." Finally, a swarm of pawns crowd the rook. "And these… are alllll the burger-munching binguses munchin' our burger."
"I'm not a burger bingus..." Hammy murmurs.
"But!" Making a circle with his finger on the far north of the map, RJ elaborates: "We keep this burger to ourselves." He slaps down a sticker of a logo onto the forest above them: a red square with a yellow M in the center, underlined and having outlines of yellow triangles within each crevice of the letter. "Our glorious horde of Mac'n'D's Grand Macs! All hidden within our new hideout."
Heather mumbles aimlessly, "Could've been Arnies'..."
"By the time we get outta this stinkhole, the BMBs won't be findin' ANY burgers to munch on. So, we gonna let 'em munch our burger?"
In quick succession, the 2 listeners answer the rally, Heather's burger train of thought full steam ahead past Hammy's attentiveness.
"Yyyes!"
"No!"
"Noooo," Heather immediately doubles back.
It's a subconscious effort that raises RJ's eyebrow at her.
"Yeah," she sighs. "Kinda a dum-dum when I'm hungry."
RJ table-flips the flimsy map, launching the chess pieces away. As he folds it back up while approaching her, he states, "You're always hungry." A little tap of the end of the map the top of Heather's head for a direct hit right between her pointed ears.
Thwack thwack thwack.
"Got a problem?" she smirks.
THWACK.
RJ just stares as he returns, Heather's face scrunched while she consoles her assaulted noggin. A whole empty moment passes before he finally slaps his open journal down on a set of 2 equally empty pages. Completely untouched, and completely unutilized. Housing for the imagination. "Our forest is hittin' the dust. But we're not done-!"
Without warning, the bongos jerk to a stop in the middle of the freeway, leaving RJ's expression to rear-end.
Hammy slaps his hand onto the button again. Drum roll. Casual bongos.
"But we're not done yet!" RJ finishes. "Because we… have this."
Unsure faces are wiped clean once 2 colored crayons land in Heather and Hammy's grasps, now blank as the lined paper RJ was hovering over with an arm. The blue and red markings, once enforcing the gridded structure, only give the white landscape a striped overlay - that extra dash of color could never be more appreciated. A striped canvas having its own drawing prompt, bouncing up and down at a bright mind who could build an impossible hotel to occupy a simplistic foundation.
"Heather, you're the artist here," RJ directs. "Make us look guuud."
Of course, the definition of 'artist' could never be set in stone. Yet, Heather was more than ready before he had even asked. "Dude, I'm like the hormonal 'possum cousin of Bob Ross. Like, check it."
A triangle of 3 smiley faces in blue, purple, and orange sketch themselves onto the center of the immersive page, uniquely disproportionate in one disorganized characteristic across one to another. For the time being, all existence takes the form of the irregular lines and shapes in the 2D environment, being compensated for by all shapes and colors now capable of morphing together to represent any object, any idea imaginable.
"So!" RJ declares. "We start small."
In an instant, the outlines of lush trees with thick trunks encase the three in an empty forest occupied only by themselves. A barren circle spanning around them creates a large circumference available for habitation. A brand new touch of life was needed to transform the space of emptiness into a space of opportunity. A trio of distinct, coordinated colors make starting points in dispersed corners of the scene, weaving lines sharing first steps only to follow their own paths soon enough. Purple and orange work in synchronization to recreate the core characteristics formerly defining the surroundings of some old, hollow husk of bark: bulletin board, umbrella canopies, and an amazing banquet tower piled higher and higher with each doodle added on.
Blue curves shape a vague resemblance of the TV set below the top edge - empty popcorn cups, Cheese Squares, and all. "Location, location, location! What we got?"
A broad purple border takes up the entire bottom side of the paper, impassibility making up for the fatal flaw in the very thing it was there to represent. "I mean we like, GOTTA have the Hedge, right?"
'Steve'. The letters write themselves in orange as a label above the purple Hedge. Hammy asks, "Hey, can we name it Steve again?"
"YOU can name it Steve again," RJ goes on with him. "That's a Hammy thing. Intellectual property."
Hammy struggles to get the words out. "Wait what- what's an… in-tel- intel-lectual-?"
An open spot in the top right corner is now being taken over by waving purple lines falling down the paper. Independent from whatever the boys were going at, Heather narrates her creation to the audience, really taking the Bob Ross thing to heart. "And we'll have a biiiiig waterfall right up there."
Orange wieners (?) hang down from an impressive willow at the pond drawn beside a lake formed at the end of a lengthy creek spanning the entire page. "Ooooo, and a hotdog tree!" Hammy adds.
The most recent addition doesn't live long. Heather is thrown completely off track, scraping Hammy's wieners right off. "Ok, THAT's just stupid."
"Nah nah, he's onto somethin'..." RJ ponders. Identical blue hotdogs replace what Hammy had just contributed. The brainstorming process begins. "What's a wiener willow good for?"
"Wait, squirrels like wieners," identifies Hammy. It was a weirdly deep pitch for a squirrel on the topic of wieners himself. Those typical daydreams fell to intentivity in the dead of night, leaving black lines behind the bent crinkles of the page even with the supportive lamp compensating for the dim sky.
"Yes you do. Who's next?"
"Oh my god," Heather gasps. "Hammy. Hold up." In awe even at her own genius realization, other undefined smiley faces draw closer and closer to the tree. "Like, OTHER guys are gonna want our wieners, right?" More faces pop up until an entire cheering crowd surrounds the sight. "If we just have 'em floppin' out, like, it'd totally bring 'em right to us!"
"Sooooo… those who eat the wiener… fight for the wiener…" The devious grin on RJ's unseen face was so damn obvious that it could be seen right through his speech.
A far shout interrupts the moment and demolishes the very scene in full. "Is the weenie talk ov'uh yet?! Jus' maybe?!"
...
Broken out of the paradise inside the page, all heads swish to the side at the outer disturbance, caught off guard by Stella's intrusion.
Verne, standing in front of the others heading off to sleep around the rest of the site on the left, just shakes his head with a sigh of stern disapproval. Back turns to the 3 as the remainder of the group disperses in all directions like the very molecules filling the conflicted air, lacking any thought of unity while they bounce off one another in an aimless jumble. He addresses Stella and Tiger with a thumb out. "Night, you two." Porcupines. "Night, pokeys." Turning to face Ozzie forces him back in RJ's direction. "Night, Ozzie."
Tall behind Heather's seated back, Ozzie passes the ritual circle of the journal and map. Those chess pieces suggested some kind of board game had taken place, followed by a deep inner reflection of events inside the journal. "Goodnight, princess."
Swiftly brushing him away with little movements of a hand, Heather turns back to the journal page to bring it a grin full of imaginative possibilities. "Yeah, night dad."
Ozzie's silhouette lingers on the base of a tree near Heather for an extra moment after his leave, the glow of the lamp taking part in its creation. All while Heather gets locked on RJ, awaiting the next course of action.
Staring. Verne comes across RJ's curving eyebrows, head heightened above limp shoulders. He doesn't blink. And so, Verne settles for a sigh and stomps one sturdy foot after another onto the dirt, returning to the vicinity of the Log after an act of judgement. His tail doesn't sway, doesn't move at any motion enacted by the remainder of his body.
Just when pulling back the flap of the cat bed for Tiger to slip into, Stella flips back to face the Log. There Verne was. Staring. Arms behind his back; posture strong and stout. But it was a clear contradiction; head lowered to the floor of the wood inside. The barrier at the hollow entrance had to be keeping him from settling in so soon - not a barrier of leaves, but one without appearance. Without comprehension. Only 'seen' in a space within, unable to be shared.
Stella pats on Tiger's back with a knuckle, pausing him as the back half of his body makes its way inside. "Get comfy. I'll… be a minute."
They take to the high hammock. In RJ's lap the journal lies, now lifted up to examine the creation left behind from the conference. Forest, hotdog tree, waterfall… the whole rundown of the list gradually heightens and heightens the sides of RJ's mouth in tiny, steady increments. The last thing he does is nod.
He briefly observes the Picasso painting they had made of themselves. Heather was lying upside down against the trunk, legs and tail slumped down over her torso. And Hammy, head and arms dangling right over the edge of the branch, had legs wide in front of his rear pushed against Heather's cheek. The fuzzy tail made the perfect pillow for the top of her head to rest on. All limbs in a jumble, and all loud mouths snoring away.
It takes only a brief moment for RJ to get situated, slinging the strap of the bag onto a sturdy stub of a branch breaking away from their own. Against the upward slope he rests, the angle providing a marvelous view of the canopy's lush roof. Just above, the trunk split away into its own diverging paths, following their unique wills and motivations, but stemming back to one united whole. 2 groups made up the whole tree: Those flourishing with leaves all about, and those left without life. Those still thriving in the elder state of the stump housing them, and those giving in to the fate placed upon them. But still they branch, following their own unique wills and motivations - stemming back to one united whole.
With the two sound asleep against each other, a sudden commotion draws RJ's attention back to the surface. He leans his head over the branch to investigate.
"Wut's with da old-guy look dis time, Verne?"
Seated back against the rim of the Log's opening, the can of Spuddies atop the site's largest pile of food in particular attracts his interest from the peak. "Is this really it?" he breathes low to Stella, disbelief gluing those 4 words tightly together.
"If yuh makin' it it." She trots past and kicks the ripped strip of bark left from the sunset with the back of her foot into Verne's view.
That single chunk had left another irreversible scar in the skin of the Log. An easy tear means an even easier fall - for what the exterior lacked in foundational resistance, it more than made up for with the willpower of those residing within. But what's a skeleton without skin? Still a skeleton… but without life nor sustenance.
Finally, a distressing message travels every telephone wire; he tosses a hand back yonder. "Are we crazy!? That's an entire beehive over there!"
Buzz goes the fly pestering RJ's ear, obscuring all noise from whatever bit of the conversation was taking place. A flurry of swats only creates retaliation from the winged diversion.
"And?" Stella objects, getting a roll of gorilla tape on the ground around her foot like a ring to punt it up into her grasp. "Did yesterday mean nothin' to yuh?" She rips the end of the tape off the base, sticky texture making a growl of clicks in reaction. "Verne… times are changin'."
That in particular brings Verne to sit up taller in anticipation as she tears off strips to start covering the new gap on the Log with a grid of durable black tape, the roll secured in her front teeth.
RJ finally manages to smack the fly away.
Passionate movements come about her. "So pick yuhself up, 'n fight back on da change!" Fixing the final strip on the patch, she spits the roll away and stands over him from the side. A couple inches made all the difference - Verne was cowered beside her renitent form. Her outer shell of firm might, harder than Verne's, allows sincerity to pass through the cracks. "You 'n I… the Alliance ain't changed one bit. Nev'uh will."
Verne stands up. "Alright." Stella's assertion raises his own, tone complying to the duty as fists go up and down in the reminder. "I can't lose this place. I just can't."
In all those words, RJ can't make out a single one of logic to prevent a head shake. What's that man thinkin' right now… Lying down bids the day farewell.
"Stella… are we ready for this?" Verne's new disquietude returns. "Am- am I gonna be too hard on RJ?"
"Yuh ain't gonna be hard 'nuff, man. Think about holdin' back, and yuh ain't gonna get nowhere with a guy like him."
Breathless, even having a huff of amusement releases at his own inner quarrel. "He's just done so much." Stella's arms cross. A shift swerves his resolve into the fastlane. "But it's all so sudden. I don't have time to try and 'seeee' his way!"
Stella sighs. All she had left to do was pat his shell and head off. "Man, jus' sleep on it. How 'bout dat?"
Just sleep on it. The telephone wires connect into one by another stare of intense consideration taken to RJ in the tree. Just sleep on it. While inactive, even RJ's naivety starts to soak and drip down the branch to collect itself in the rain bucket of Verne's eyes. The more is filled, the more intent replaces the still mood of the context. "Yeah… just sleep on it."
The Log.
"I can do that."
One straggling stretched cord plugs right into the other by Heather's doing, stemming from an indecipherable source within the festival of the forest.
A swish of 2 dark fingers straightens up the brim of a massive sombrero miraculously balanced atop a concealed head. All above hidden, the cool grin on his face displays its teeth.
The sleek golden banner strings up with a giggle, Hammy's lightning-fast limbs working to tie one end around an erected branch high above the scene. So in-spirit as to add some decorative liberties by leaving a good length of its ribbon swaying in the breeze below. Just some pizzazz.
The ethereal morning light nurtures the tranquil glade left to thrive inside the damp log. Leaves shake out in the open world - not from cold, but from the hint of a dormant breeze adding a comfortable coolant to the palette of the sun's warm rays. Verne confined himself to the indoor habitat of firefly woods, ears already filled with the steady buzz of the turning earth. Moss lining the walls shrouded his surroundings in the cloak of Mother Nature's embracement; the mushroom disciples spread her loving arms of fur, and wood, and the smoothest clay. The flowing waters running down her cheeks do not cry from sadness, but at beautiful magnificence. Those thoughts collect themselves in the pond of the willow, soaking in to gift the plant-life a thriving source of richness and fertility. Verne takes the blanket, knitted by woven bush leaves, and pulls it up over his sleepy torso.
"Ahhh."
"WOOOOOOOOO-"
The veins in Verne's eyes, red as a throbbing surge of blood itself, nearly pop out their sockets once absorbing the prolonged screech of a raccoon just outside. Yet no effect comes to his tall smile, the racket too unanticipated to thaw it out of bitter ice.
RJ cheers from underneath the tent of 2 adjacent blue and white umbrellas. One pile of multicolored, joyous containers and boxes, surely stuffed with a fiesta feast for all, make the vivid scene all the merrier behind him. So much so that the sombrero, though tempted to shift towards his back side from his raised chin, sticks onto the party host.
The fake flowers on the lei, far too unsuitable for Heather's neck, flutter on the string as she slides up against RJ, dangling so far down off of her that they gave her a 2nd tail coming off the front. "WOOOOOOOOO-"
"WOOOOOOOOOOO!" Hammy's voice vibrates like a choirboy once he teleports in on RJ's opposite side, creating a beautiful harmony among them in the center of the food-filled square.
"WOO!" the 3 shout, arms tossed wide open.
RJ yanks the string of a little party popper to blast a load of colorful confetti out to rain down onto Verne's grumpy, motionless head opposite them. One piece of the tiny paper twirling down lands right on the tip of his circular nose.
A large, round, pink balloon creaks on its elongated string, pleading just as much as Verne to be freed from the party-painted prison weighing it down. Cloth swallowing the brim of RJ's sombrero, checkered red and green, adds repulsive insult in the face of a solemn struggle. Tropical flowers on Heather's lei pain the eyes with their obnoxious tone, off on a vacation to a shark-teeth shore, spiked rocks lining the water of the hard, rocky beach. Verne examines it all in great sternful silence. The gloss of the golden banner draping between 2 sprightful branches waves its message loud and proud:
'Happy Trails!'
Keeping the energy flowing, Heather shimmies back. Phone lying somewhere nearby, the tip of her tail smacks the play button showing from the radiant blue light.
Spike touches the front of the double speaker skyscrapers idle at the border into the thick brush. The gasp slips right out his mouth.
"Wicked cool-"
Boop. Without warning, without buildup, blaring guitar music cranked up to 12 shakes the ground and transforms Spike into a bullet, blasting him off and away to answer the call of his people. The base of both towers rumbling, one speaker is tripped off its bottom and crashes over, stubbornly continuing to send its jam into the depth of the earth.
What grows and grows alongside the blast of soundwaves is none other than Open Wound's explosive violence, progressing towards a physical approach rather than verbal. "And I'll sacrifice ANY of the men I need to keep it MINE!"
Back at the TV set, persistent as they were, the pillow underneath Stella and Tiger gets capsized right as a forceful punching noise comes from the screen, replaced by a hollering guitar.
The whirr of the deliciously-pure coffee streaming out the machine into Ozzie's '#1 Trash Cat' mug is fractured by the irregular motion below, shooting his sleepy face awake, now investigating. The mug falls over and spills the remaining coffee into the soil to water new coffee plants, tensing his brows in agitation.
A glass cup shaped in rich crystals slides off a high shelf and shatters on the slick, dark wood covering the uncarpeted region of the living room, glittering shrapnel treading into the dangerous vicinity of Hoppy's bed. The music box inside her head is unshook by the vibrating ground underneath her; unmuffled by the fluffy material layering the top of the rounded pan she slumbered in. That coating of white fully punctuated those sweet splotches of milk chocolate covering her body, blending in with the snowy fur beneath. In the presence of collapsing furniture, Hoppy yawns and turns her back away.
The entire planet, on its rotating course, jerks and jiggles to the rhythm. Mt. Everest just experienced its worst avalanche since 2014 before it even happened. Those pleasant folks who ear-blast the bass of their music as they drive down the road SO loud that people might as well be prepping for an earthquake? Yeah, like that. But now it's the entire goddamn planet. The hydrosphere no longer needed the moon to monitor its tides.
The footing of the main 4, offset by the sudden earthquake, refuses to morph countenances into a state of distress. Verne's deathly cold stare prompts RJ to jab Heather with an elbow to hold off on the rock 'n roll. Her tail hesitantly gives in to tap the button again, sparing the forest and returning tranquility to the chirping birds somewhere far off. The shaking that had made the vast prospect incomprehensible comes to an end.
The only thing breaking the still image of the group are the exhilarated acclaims by the porcupine kids, struggling to break free from the control of their parents to join in on the fun. But one thing remains more still than the others: inconvenienced stares on RJ stemming from all directions.
"I'd say you've got your hat on a little too tight yourself." Before stomping off, Verne makes sure to poke roughly up the brim of the ridiculous sombrero making a floppy umbrella atop RJ's dome.
"Tight?" Heather chuckles. "That Mexican hat's, like, sooo too big for you, dude." After a friendly nudge up on the brim herself, she skips away.
His hat, timidly sliding down his forehead before tumbling off, makes his mug wish it could droop off his face along with. "You take it," he grumps.
The response halts her feet. The lost momentum whizzes ecstasy up the rest of her body, flipping around. "Wait, real talk?"
A flip of the hat tightens it back on.
"No."
Heather manages to emit a groan low enough in its disappointment to startle the monster under the bridge. No distinguished destination is set by her feet once they decide to trample through the grass. Meanwhile, RJ rushes after Verne while he pouts back to the Log, head hunched forward.
RJ weaves in from the side. "Verne Verne Verne Verne Verne-"
Jerking RJ back, the lost momentum in his halted feet brings tightness into his fists rather than the previous. "RJ… I am tired, and I am on edge…" Everything left of the party decorations lingered behind his back, lurking like sinister demons in his shadow, prone to nightmarish creations caused by his own wake. A heavy sigh makes way to the caboose of his mope: "...and I must've forgotten to put my dreamcatcher out. Sooo-"
"So nothing's new," RJ shrugs, expression now full of jest at the opening found by an instinctive muscle in his jaw.
Verne stares with lowered, unmoving eyelids before giving him the cold shoulder to bump him out of the way and continue closer to the Log.
In a panic, RJ's mind pulls a full 180 back to its previous plea, whizzing the sombrero rim back in the swift gust. "Ok wait wait wait!" Grabbing his shell spins Verne right back 'round, posture unchanging. "We've got THREE WEEKS! What's our order of business here?!"
The mountain of Twinkies off to the side comes into Verne's view, silencing him for a moment. A new observation shifts his priorities.
And sombreros - a stupid sombrero on RJ's head. Believe it or not, Verne finds no seriousness in a festive waffle making up RJ's whole mass in itself, obscuring the morning's aura of a healthy, diligent start. "Well… I can tell you our…" A grab and a frisbee toss sends it into oblivion. "FIRST order of business!"
The frantic movement of his arms and the gasp from his throat makes up for the stiffness in RJ's legs, one ruling sector restraining the rest.
"Heeere's what we're doing," Verne starts.
"Leaving?"
A nudge comes to the messy mound of Twinkies. "The cave."
RJ's countenance lowers sourly.
"Al-right, chop chop-" Whizzing by all ways, the unity of the squad is encouraged by RJ's backwards waltz. Suddenly, a rampant scream amasses from the lump his back collides with, stabbing the hairs on his tail straight up.
"AAAAAAAAA!"
Seated on a leg, Heather had her head leaning all the way back to the other end, stuck out to the side. "AAAAAAAAA!" she repeats, jaw snapping wide open and managing a jarringly obtuse angle from the corner of her mouth to the curved ends.
"What… are you doin'?" RJ hesitates.
Indifference remains in her response (despite the sacred act he had interrupted). The muzzle points up to address the man at the door, presenting low eyes to the onlooker. "Just, like, a 'possum thing, don't worry 'bout it." She leans her head right back down to send the same message to the smokestack.
"AAAAAAAA!"
A quiet click.
The empty, enclosed landscape generates itself before RJ, flashlight aimed into the deepest depths of the cave. Like it was just yesterday. The sole of a foot plants itself onto the familiar stone, only releasing the pulse of a beacon to illustrate an immediate snapshot of his surroundings. Familiarity was only a distraction from true nature, lowering that awareness needed to assess the dark, hidden corners spread throughout as to leave no area fully explored. The same effect that revealed 'RJ the 2nd' leaning smug against a large rock at the doorway of the chamber.
The convincing replica of RJ's voice is there to greet him at the door. "Nice to meet you."
Well, the first water had already been broken. The voice no longer rebounds off the walls back to itself - an equal presence shows no discomfort speaking back to the copy. RJ stabs a finger out, others on the hand gripped tight against the crevices. "Don't get used to it. I don't wanna be here either... ME."
"Now who said you didn't wanna be here?"
That takes RJ aback right as he crosses the line, footing glued right next to the hologram. A protest coming from what was his own self, sharing his own feelings. Still, a protest. "Me?"
Pseudo-RJ shrugs. "Alriiight, just remember your choice," he teases. "Ya got 2 minds - 1 speakin' out, the other speakin' in. The eye ya choooose is up to you."
RJ waves the vision, and its sudden philosophical nonsense, away into nonexistence. "Okay me, shut up."
RJ reenters the back room and begins unloading right away, flipping his bag over to dump an entire mound of Twinkies before kicking a foot right the other way and heading out. Nothing in his face nor posture changes during the process, if it could even be considered such. More like a trial. But, unseen by the naked eye, an entire mountain is lifted off his back.
At home base, the blue cooler they had managed to drag all the way to this remote location slogs past Verne's crossed arms, supported only by all the pairs of little hands wobbling up the weight. No wagon - something the opossums in particular had tense countenances to blatantly convey. One slow, pounding step after another thumps the cooler with little hops graceful atop the zombies of workers dying underneath.
So what follows the slam of the packed container onto the ground, ready to be unloaded? The slam of 2 feet in the ruffled grass, even the slightest bit of mass added by an empty golf bag ready to be unloaded itself (as if it hadn't been already). RJ's aching back doesn't compensate the sheer casualness he parades towards Verne, declaring that the end of business. Face cross and an arm wide in disbelief, Verne rotates himself to track RJ's indifference waltzing right past him.
Verne wasn't buying a single bit of it, the untouched cooler still… untouched. "You're telling me that's it."
But RJ keeps moving him along, not turning around. "The Twinkies have been delivered, and my back must be spared another day. You've officially asked for too much."
Attentiveness restricted to the disbelieving Verne he's passing by, an awkward puff of air is knocked right out of RJ's stomach once he bumps into an unforeseen mass obstructing his stroll. Tipping onto the heels of his feet, he watches Hammy slide up from below with a dorky grin barely held back by the 2 oversized front teeth locking the mouth shut. The poke of a thumb towards the spotlight above the vending machine is followed by his sprightly insistent nod. 9 additional figures, once hazy in his field of view, encapture his peripheral vision using similar jackhammer-like movements of the noggin. All exhausted in appearance, but lit up by the opportunity.
The hand of a squirrel, never so ready to take up the prospect, jumps up and slaps the final quarter into the slot.
Hammy, springing up to hit his buttons of choice, leaves RJ to sit slumped like a pillar of wet clay slowly collapsing into a bent form against the machine's corner. Thrusting over a trio of coins, each passing recipient only accelerates the unbearable road toward the end of his boredom. "Next... Your turn... Take it…"
The goodies drizzle from slots here and there, plastic thumping in steady succession at the exit of the machine. A new set of arms comes into the flap for each one retrieved.
3 remaining quarters, locked between the cracks of RJ's fingers, are flicked in a row by the other set for Heather to retrieve. RJ himself, though delayed and visibly unsure in the motion, unravels his own fancy dollar and makes an obligatory effort to contribute to the lost cause soon to come in his crooked fate.
"RJ…" Heather starts, sniffing at the selection through the transparent screen with a grunt. "They still ain't got Snazzy Ranch."
"WHAT?!"
Y'know, some bad news is best left unspoken. Speaking it only means RJ has to slam his face against the glass to view the tragedy firsthand. Each row was entirely filled up and ready to smile radiant smiles down upon him, yet lacking one specific item of interest to shine above them all. The lack of said item shoved away any form of fatigue plaguing his movement, or lack thereof.
"Ugh, those uncultured… Nacho Cheese cretins!" He sighs in disappointment. "They don't know the truly superior flavor."
"Y'know, I just like the blue bags."
RJ still has a fist nailed on the glass, left without hope for the future of mankind. The strips of blue on his golf bag follow as the strap slides a bit down the lowered slope of his shoulder. "Blue IS a good color, Heather," he confirms.
Heather takes the quarters into her tail before flinging them into the high coin slot, forced to settle for some inferior Nacho Cheese in the absence of the glorious epitome of triangle-shaped edibles. Of course, not even she could've been saved from a phase of Nacho Cheese praise in naive assumptions.
And RJ is in turn, staring down the horizontal dollar slot staring right back at him once the bill, top corner ever so slightly bent among the pristine texture, is put in. Thus had initiated the painful process doomed for RJ to follow. A muffled, subtle "ERR" from inside the machine rejects the offering and calmly slides it back out to RJ. Instead of leaving it for RJ to fetch for himself, the thing quite insultingly flops the dollar out to spit it at RJ's feet like a chewed piece of gum. Somehow, it exited more wrinkled than it had been before entering.
Yet to be overcome by some minor inconveniences, RJ just takes it back, smoothens it up a bit, and slips it back in with a bound. The tip of the bent corner had yet to be attended to.
ERR.
The dollar is puked back out, another attempt bringing more salt to the wound than it did medicine.
And the only sound Verne picks up over the glee of those free to gobble down in the gleaming sunlight is its pure inverse - the bang of RJ's forehead onto the box of giving, all that contentment kept locked from him merely impelling a growl instead. The light fixture above him and Heather, the latter resorting to a shoulder pat as consolement, only paints the hint of security and openness as artificial. Bustle here, bustle there, and none of it was worth a conscious thought more than the raccoon soaking into the crevices of Verne's brain.
And so Verne, once apathetic towards the subject, is now invested in RJ's inevitable failure. A wider curve forms on his grin after a quick analysis of the dilemma going on behind the encircling crowd. The muscles in his face squint up, ever so slyly graded and parallel between the vertical layers of his face.
Hence the approaching turtle incites some uncertainty into Heather's lips. But he still paces - unhesitant; unreserved. Verne swipes the wreck of a dollar from underneath RJ's lowered head against the hard surface of that who has bested him time and time again, reacting as though a fly had been swatted right on his nose.
2 chubby fingers create a slot of their own for the length of the paper to slip past, flattening it as simply as it sounded, good as new. And now, all corners fell into place, tiny fingers straightened alongside the green, rectangular incarnation of George Washington.
Verne takes a look at RJ, whose brow had been raised and locked on him. A good look. But feeling the strong, unactionable red glow seeping off his body the restrained heat of a rival upon him, he skips over the option. Instead, he resorts to the easiest. "Hammy?"
So soon at the ready was Hammy to act upon the command of those who shared any bit of his loyalty, snatching the dollar right on cue and hopping to the slot to place it in. RJ stares up, frown overcome by anticipation yet one side loose in a sense of hopelessness. And, paining a deep spot somewhere inside to slacken his stance, the skinny black slit slurps it up like a noodle just like that. Every inch drawn in slow enough to make the moment last an eternity, a thin wire supporting the tame flow of his mind is pulled tighter and tighter to the point of snapping off from the endless increase of pressure. Following 2 more button presses above, the blur of an orange bag falling from a high shelf pins the nail in the coffin.
"There ya go, Uncle Verne!" announces Hammy, returning to his own prize.
Nudging RJ out of the way, Verne makes no scene out of grabbing his chips right for RJ to see. The quarter of change is flicked by Verne's thumb in a perfect spinning arc into the sagging bag on RJ's back. It makes a klink inside at its contact, sidetracking RJ from the Nacho Cheese chips Verne was making off with.
Feel that? That new air in the atmosphere around? Well Verne does, that refreshing, cool radiance of triumph over one single figure capturing his intent. It lifts him up, untroubled by the equal reactive force lowering another end down. Bag of chips being waved victoriously, Heather keeps watch of RJ's silently growing temper behind Verne's back.
"See THAT?" Verne declares. "The chips have spoken." It's held high as a towering landmark, asserting Verne's single seat on the double-length throne.
A magical puff of cheese powder making a small cloud out the top, Verne pops the bag open. RJ grudgingly remains in place near Heather and Hammy, the remainder of the group drawn to Verne's victory snack like moths to a lightbulb. The two closest nearby keep mouths occupied while RJ's finds nothing to please itself and overcome the haunting history of that otherworldly contraption.
Mostly directed to himself, he snarls, "One of these times, I'm just gonna bust that window…"
Crinkle. The walls of the bag respond loud to Hammy digging in, off on his own topic. "Oooo, windows are like those ghost walls! Except they're not ghosts. And they're not walls."
Heather, chill in manner, expresses a need for elaboration. "Ghost walls?"
Crumbs escape from Hammy's lips. "I run into them allll the time!" He shivers unnervingly. "It's like they're following me… watching…" Something is watching through the page, Hammy's eyes wide and unmoving through the binoculars made out of his hands. Those deathly black pupils bleed into the words, nothing felt by the one following the lines as they are written but the intense pressure suddenly festering from the inside out. And as it festers, that same one still following the lines now confronts the darkest depths of Hammy's soul, daring for a response while it itself stays silent just for a despicable tease.
RJ and Heather exchange glances, clearly not afraid to express how creeped out they had been from the unnecessary delivery of the previous paragraph.
Hey, I heard that, RJ thinks, a finger up to the sky. A rather arbitrary comment to whomever conscience, whomever heavenly figure he had spoken to.
"You'll learn when you're older," Heather continues with Hammy.
Excitement spreads across Hammy's countenance. "Heyyyyy, I'm older right now!"
"The squirrel's got a point." RJ's judgement frowns Heather.
A whistle comes from someone in the larger mass to save Heather from a very long explanation. The porcupines pick the heavy cooler right back up. And this time, there's no strain in the smiles on their faces and snack bags stored in the quills on their backs. The rest of the group heads off to wander down the edge of the fathomless road in glee, Hammy laughing to bounce away and leave RJ and Heather relaxed cross-legged on the vendor.
Sneaking her bag to RJ, Heather wiggles it optimistically. "Psst. Take one."
No further communication was necessary. In RJ's despairful chip deficit, Heather's bag was free for him to heal the chip-less hole in his heart. One chip of compassion passed over to share with one of the not-so-chipped to whom she shared sympathy.
The bag crinkles away. Indulging in discrete amusement along with her, a handful of chips the size of RJ's massive forehead doesn't even flinch Heather in the slightest. Across from the thick base of a straight tree making a suitable alternative to their previous backrest, the heated discussion going on below the blazing sun at the edge of the cliff grabs the attention that any old drama show could. Difference was, RJ and Heather's hands were encased in cheese dust. No cheese dust on the hands of the others. They couldn't comfort themselves in such a luxury, lacking affability in the wake of the construction amplifying the perilous prospect ahead.
Mouth full, Heather drifts her upper body toward RJ for him to look down upon the top of her head. The bottom edges of her eyes are bent up, conveying a smile in itself. "So like… we got our next attack?"
1 last chip, the nacho cheese-iest of them all, sneaks out and into the snare of RJ's teeth, crunch full of cool confidence. "I'm a man o' smooth wooords, 'possum pal. We're gettin' our forest."
Heather brings warmth to herself once RJ kicks back with a foot to stabilize his posture off the tree and approach the others, his happy little insistence never more reassuring to the ear. He licks the cheese off every finger, ending the well-needed intervention he had disregarded for a second too long. Or a minute. Or a lot of minutes. Guilty pleasures do some wacky magic.
All backs turned and invested in the rambling, RJ grasps Hammy's shoulders to snag off from the side and sneaks him back, making one simple signal to his instructive face and one to the golf bag face-up next to Heather. All Hammy does is nod rapidly, understanding so swiftly; acting so readily.
There reveals a new Verne in Verne, up to the physical burden required for the glory of the homeland. The rough surface, dirty underneath his feet, remains strong as his will. "If fighting is what we have to do, I'll darn do it!"
Tiger's tone comes passionate and severe, some of Stella's essence clearly rubbing off from her contact on his shoulder. "I am all too familiar with their unpredictability. How can we know what they're capable of-?!"
RJ shoves through the crowd (might as well have shoved the crowd over in the process) to answer the call in a slick entrance in front of the audience, sliding on a knee past the smooth blades sticking out from the ground. "'What are they capable of', you say!" It was this moment that he had shown a lifetime's worth of recital for.
"We're not HERE for another 'RJ' moment, RJ-!" Verne hurries out, stomping up at the interruption.
The arm RJ had lowered in his entry shoves the turtle away. At the edge of the cliff, he clears his throat. "It's very simple, really."
He snaps his fingers at Heather and Hammy standing on either side of the erected golf bag. With flailing limbs, they lean in and launch out a giant flipchart to land perfectly on its wooden stand behind RJ, followed by a flurry of miniature circular stools arriving at the butts of every member. All but Verne's stands face-up to have them plop onto the seats, Verne himself analyzing the dull yet compliant responses of his people in the rigidness coming across his face at their split loyalty. No reason to lengthen his discomfort, the upside-down position of his chair tumbles his unsuspecting shell down rather than relieving it.
"Well dis don't make sense eith'uh," Stella comments to Tiger from the lengthier, rectangular stool prepared just for them.
The rounded legs of the stool grip tight onto Verne's shell, pulling back at his straining effort to pick himself up and slump forward. "I think I'm done asking questions." A bruised groan in his speech weaves between the cracks of gnashed teeth.
Zipping up out of nowhere and leaning into his valuable personal space is, of course, RJ. "Good!" 2 babyish head pats follow his words. "Hold all questions til the end, please."
Verne frowns from his front-row seat (or, more accurately, stand) as RJ slides back to the board, catching a golf club now falling into his hand and smacking the head at the center of the paper. What grudges Verne most doesn't happen to be his presence - rather, a hateful anticipation elastically stretched through the fabrics of his mind out into reality. It was that slick, persuasive tone in RJ's voice that signaled an oration soon to take place, cringing Verne's face in preparation. It comes sooner than he has the chance to brainwash himself into residing in a world of puppies and kittens. None named RJ, preferably.
"May I have your attention?" RJ begins. All fall silent, managing to keep apathetic sights on him. Heather and Hammy get seated with gleeful spirit.
"Those humans - they've got a lotta' 6-letter words crownin' their domes." Pacing left and right past the chart, RJ lists: "Sleepy, creepy, downright erotic, but most importantly…" A flip of the page uncovers the first panel and reveals the title: 'RJ's 1st Law of Stupid'. "Stupid."
Verne glances here and there in disapproval, the younger pupils breathing obligatory "ooo"s and "aah"s.
With a smack of the club onto the center of the diagram, his unoccupied arm bends stiff behind his back in his tall form. "Law #1! Stupid starts with a source."
Into a drawing of a TV on the page they enter, ending up peeking into a large square window at a large man glued to his recliner, staring at the football game broadcasted on the TV nearby. The seat of the poor chair would probably have scars if that guy got up. Even the armrests left sunken plots of land every time the giant lifted its arm up to adjust the volume for the hundredth time that session.
"First source is one we know allll too well," RJ explains. "The PORTAL… into stupidity. They stare at the magic box for hooours!"
Stella and Tiger shoot each other concerning looks.
"It may feed our marvelous brains, but it kills theirs." The lesson at its end, he flips away from the window to rush them off. "Now, moving on! Chop chop!"
From the new post taken place behind a massive wheeled trash can in a sunny driveway, the roof of a bright yellow school bus gleams with pride as it roars down the paved street, tossing out kids at every house like delivering little newspapers of newfound 'knowledge'. The others stare timidly at the immense dispenser of human children.
"And that is the mode of transportation taking the youth to that magical place to learn how to be stupid."
All but the eldest members (Verne) gasp at the reveal of the beast's true intentions.
And following the bus comes a whimsical boy wobbling on his deep blue bike, lobbing real newspapers here and there in a manner largely overwhelmed by the workload. Under the heated rays of the sun, angle direct at noon, sweat runs down the dark skin of his face.
At the sidewalk, a pair of high heels clop down beside the paper, now being snagged up by a middle-aged woman. To the front patio she travels, practically tripping with every step to get there just to wave the newspaper right against the face of a man. "Did you hear about how...?"
The relay race begins. He runs up the steps and is already picking up an old phone off the wall as a silhouette behind a blue curtain through the window. No number on the phone is left unpressed, wondering how he could possibly be out of breath after flying up a staircase in one leap. "Hey Steve! Remember that knucklehead they got for a gov' down in…?"
On another phone across town, that exact same newspaper sending a stir across town is flipped through by a short man behind the cover of a window curtain all the same. "Hey! Where's that strip 'bout those animals playin' Sudoku?"
The next window races by, one woman sharing a word with another. "Don't come on Sundays. Y'read it yesterday?"
A rumbling, lively beat is polite enough to enclose itself within the following house, yet only half committing to the act. An open upstairs window leaks out the rowdy talk going on by the partygoers inside. And, guess one may, that same window features some habitants of its own, two tipsy men conversing over the enjoyment of their fat mugs. Beefy arms made no difference in keeping them on balance, only ensuring that the drinks don't slip out beforehand.
One raspy voice mentions, "Yeah, said they needed women on the strip!" Both men laugh heartily away.
Lucky enough to star as guests at the party, RJ is the first to burst out of a large cardboard box thrown up to the front door, the others launching packing peanuts all about. "Word goes 'round like the Plague," he summarizes. "And all the stupid hides in between it. The mind believe what it wanna believe."
From the top, those packing peanuts make even clear skies experience some squishy, light pink hail.
Suburbia was expansive. Unforgiving. At least, that's all Verne could take out of the newest setting. Gathered atop the skyline of the neighborhood, only the point met at the middle of the rooftop provided them a stable support, overlooking a whole new kind of forest - the kind that couldn't be replanted, nor replaced. Leaves of gray, and red, and brown; bodies as fat (and obstructive) as the shades up top would be to the winged creatures. Winged creatures of white, reflecting the sunlight in their polish rather than absorbing its nutrients. It's the same view, a new palette below the sky of blue, that now musters fiercer, visible intensity in the twitch at the edge of Verne's mouth.
"So what's the source here?" he asks, managing to keep bias and emotion out of the picture. He scans the view with great uncertainty, head hopping between each house to search for instruction.
Ding. Dong. Ding. Dong.
Ding. Dong. Ding. Dong.
Finger raised up, and right back down. RJ's scripted lecture on the echoing bells stretching the whole horizon ends itself outright in the last second it had to save itself. "A humanities teacher would beat me with a stick for the uncultured things I'm 'bout to say."
"Laaaw #2!" he continues back at the cliff, expressively firm in his strict authority over the students now fully captivated by the session. "UNlike the Plague, stupid spreads by influence, not contact."
"Which means what exactly?"
Though not showing the courtesy to raise his hand before speaking, Verne activates RJ's on-toes instincts to answer without care for the minor misconduct. "Glad you asked, feeble fellow." Flip. The page coming in succession illustrates their very site with one large box underneath, a tall gauge drawn in healthy green on the edge of the page. "This... is ouuur stupid meter. Humans on one side - 25%! Now, fancy this… You 'n your lil' bark-huggers KEEP that dirty log."
Verne and Stella huff at the remark.
"What happens next?" In exaggeration of his point, a horrifying tear of the paper rips a jagged line to uncover what should be an identical image, all except for 4 boxes enclosing them on all sides, and meter topped off with a dangerous red color. "BOOM! Suburbia all around! Stupid everywhere!"
"Still think you can stick to your guns?" he throws out to Verne, jerking him back (thankfully) with the aggravation in his countenance along with.
Sour in mood, Stella and Tiger are challenged the same. "Embrace the stupid?"
Verne's chest scrunches over his stomach, the inflexible shell being the only restraining measure. "This is stupid…"
"Not quite as stupid as you'll be. Observe."
That said observation plays out inside the white frame of a plain window. The dim, warm lights on the ceiling fan hanging from the tan roof of a living room bring focus to one small, blonde-haired girl unboxing some cardboard box comparable in shape to a brown barnhouse. On the simple couch she sits, busting the flap of the lid open to reveal the unbelievable gift - a remedy for a bored mind! A pet for the masses! Resting right atop a stack of thin hay, waiting to be cherished!
A rock.
"A rock." The only 2 words Stella could use to capture her reaction.
"Oh, it all starts with one," RJ informs. "Oh-ho-ho!… say hello to the stupid world of stupid business."
Hopping down places them on the concrete spanning the house's side. With the club, RJ pulls back the spiky bush marking the border of the narrow space to display all that lies past the driveway. Kids on the sidewalks prance every which way, parading with googly-eyed rocks all varied in shape and dull color, yet identical in the prestige it portrayed to all others - no badge, no membership in the unspoken club.
A piercing scream tops it all off, for some reason - that of another little girl. Somehow, a Hammy-shaped outline had disappeared from existence. Out of nowhere comes Hammy, zipping back into place with a pair of googly eyes in one hand. He slaps them onto the bumpy surface of a chocolate chip cookie in his other. Thus, the best thing since sliced bread could now boast itself as the best thing since googly-eyed rocks.
RJ still provides the necessary commentary on the matter. "Take it from the experts: You either got what the other's got, or you've got nothin' at all. No contact! Just influence."
"Wow." Already all over Hammy at his creation, a very impressed Heather praises the masterpiece of a product, leaning over. Replicating the simplistic googly-eyed stature, the whiff of mouth-watering chocolate chips entering her nostrils made it a worthy upgrade. "So didn't think a pet rock could get any better."
"I'm in love with my pet Jeff-ery!" Hammy sings the theme song advertising his latest and greatest invention, adding in a little dance to go along with.
Once he holds it up to see its smiling face, the googly eyes slide clean off into the grass. Well… If it works, paint right over it. Suddenly, it works even better.
"Now that's entrepreneurship," RJ states with pride.
The prolonged rev of a lawnmower comes from nearby.
"Aaaah, hear that?" RJ grins as he picks up just the right sound for the occasion, hand to ear. "That's the influence callin'."
Atop the Hedge, a scan is taken down the lane of yards spanning into the abyss of the far-off forested hills in the background. Not a single square of flat land bordering the uneven forest was occupied. A swingset creaks in the easy breeze. No activity making a bustle, Verne looks to RJ, the doubt flooding his countenance ringing true in the absence of validation on the opposing argument. RJ just clears his throat and displays one timid lawnmower now being quietly driven down a lane in the yard, chopping up the tips of grass as it goes.
What's that? The neighbor's mowing? That's outrageous! Why haven't WE mowed yet?
What's that? The neighbor's mowing? That's outrageous! Why haven't WE mowed yet?
What's that? The neighbor's mowing? That's outrageous! Why haven't WE mowed yet?
No conceivable demonstration would be necessary to describe the scenario. Just hear a raging cyclone of mowing mowers, racing to mow and match those who had mowed. That unmistakable sign of a point well 'proven': sneaky grin failing at being… sneaky. Verne makes no mistake recognizing it upon a face. THE face. Who else holds such an expression capable of conveying the hidden snotty attitude than RJ?
"And that is what we call: 'INFLUENCE, not contact,'" RJ boasts.
The page flips back to wave farewell to the incoming construction one last time. "And finally, Law #3: Stupid has no end. Every living being has a liiittle bit of stupid inside 'em, waiting to be spread from one host to the next."
From the front row, Heather laments, "I've got like, a whooole lotta stupid inside me."
RJ waltzes right up to her to note, "You ain't contagious. That was just my influence."
They jerk back at the ripping of dirt being dug out of the earth, unhooking any roots wiggling into the earth as octopus arms do.
"There's some real stupid for ya." On the other side of the road, a large, thorned rose bush is planted into the divot in the row, completing an entire wall of decorative shrubbery replacing that which had been grander - what had roofed the forest; what had guarded that which remained only scenery for mankind to appreciate. And then replace. Why not. "The stupid mind is NEVER satisfied!" RJ bumps Verne with a small smirk stretching the sides of his mouth. "You'll be surrounded by rose bushes too if you ain't careful, man…"
They stare back at the elegant roses, Verne unable to join in on the approbation of the idea. A festering spirit in the form of a frown takes the spot discouragement had been destined to take.
From one large pot of luscious roses suspended from the overhang over the patio with a flimsy chain, RJ and the others pop out. The links of the suspension rattle at their entrance, clay pot holding up the weight as if they were the blooming flowers themselves. One green, barren head must've been late to the party, nowhere in the bunch.
"Flowers in pots, heh…" RJ chuckles. As a tall, floral pink-shirted woman casually moves some flower pots to the patio, RJ brings primary focus to the empty yard left to scorn at the oil that had been struck by the wealth of the decorated patio. "And ya got a WHOLE yard for what, huh?"
"They'd totally be better hats," Heather agrees.
Verne squeezes his shell through the dead center of the roses, RJ's flawless wisdom clearly visioning what would be soon to surround him. No strain in the action occurs - only apathy. But the snap of a chain would be sure to unite the outlier with the infectious majority, spreading fearful anticipation like connect-the-dots. The pot comes crashing down.
The thump of the trunk on the moving truck leads right into the startup of the engine, and the identical preparation occurs in the cutesy little deep blue convertible in front of it in the driveway. A smug man, smiling full of teeth on his upside-down triangle of a head, waves proudly back to the dusty old house from the shotgun. Fanfare comes from the horn of the wheel played on a melody by the wife in the driver's seat. A new age was set to begin for the couple - time for a fresh start in a fresh location to settle.
"And here," RJ says with great enthusiasm on this instance in particular. "We find the stupids in question completing a neat little process called 'moving in'."
"Ach. I've never understood it," scolds Tiger, animated movements of a paw demonstrating what he had been obligated to hold back from his facilitators for far too long. "Always this and there."
Exactly the meat of RJ's lesson! "And they don't have a reason! But y'see how easy the humans make it?"
While RJ narrates, the shiny car (trailed by the moving van) speeds 2 houses down and slams to a stop at a house with a 'For Sale' sign advertised in the yard - the only thing redeeming the otherwise identical structure.
"When they move in, we gotta move out."
"We AREN'T humans!" Articulated words shoot out of Verne's mouth, fighting back from the inside out, and now brought to prominence at the blunt surface. "We aren't with them! We don't MOVE with them!"
"But they're animals... Dare I say... stupid ones."
Verne fumes. RJ's speech didn't even deserve a proper recognition of address. His ears just block the tone right out, leaving only words to be spat at his feet. No substance nor expression. Only words stung the stinging cut.
But of course, the 3 kids were around the opponent at once, moths now worshipping the brightest lightbulb, housing the shiniest of ornaments. "Uncle RJ, show us more stupid!" Bucky pleads.
"Yeah, what's the STOOOpidest stupid?" asks Spike.
"It's GOTTA be Spike," Quillo laughs in response.
Spike jets his threatening frown out at Quillo for him to read loud and clear. Violence now imminent.
RJ just quietly chuckles in high pitch. "Heh heh heh!" A broad, coltish step is taken outward, swapping a finger between the 3 in succession in an urge to follow along. "You're makin' this too easy!"
That same fat football-watcher from some time ago, now shirtless, aimlessly swings the door of the fridge open. On the motionless blades of a ceiling fan the animals observe, the human's bulging stomach more than enough to prove the needlessness of the act.
"Stupid."
Stiff shoulders blow the man's double chin slouch down to the floor before slamming the attractive silver door back shut.
The poor guy, now stuffed into formal clothing, faces the encompassing, ear-ringing commotion of a bustling family paying a visit. His finger is stuck on which of the 4 options of forks to use for a meager bit of caesar salad taken from the giant salad bowl onto his plate. If only there were any way to distinguish them, all with merely a speck of variability.
"Stupid," RJ repeats lower.
The orange glow of sunset reflects off the surface of the kitchen table, dinner scraps left unattended to. Though at his laptop in some casual attire, the (shockingly) clean and responsible work setup doesn't pull the man into any mindset but the one enacted by the spinning wheel inside his brain. Even a rat operating the thing could've saved him from being too occupied with the frenzy-click of a smooth pen.
"Stu-piiid!"
All is dark. Free from the rush of the day, the man hesitantly opens the door of the fridge again to take a peek. To some dismay, a roast turkey had indeed not magically manifested itself into existence. Yet. The Hedgies, hidden in the exact same spot, found the change of ambient lighting to be the only factor suggesting any time had passed at all.
"Stiiill stupid…"
It glows right in their enthralled faces. If anything were to be the saving grace of such a display of stupidity, one thing never faltered. A new color of an unidentifiable logo, yet familiar just by a glimpse, reflects in every pair of eyes with every bounce at an edge, shifting the direction their tunnel-visioned sights travel. Red to blue. Blue to yellow. The TV through the window, keeping the man on the edge of his seat just the same, hypnotizes all who looked upon the undeniable power of the bouncing, 3-letter acronym.
Only Verne lacks the stomach-lying postures the others had taken to. He looks to RJ sternly, everyone lacking the consciousness he possessed while trapped in wonderment.
Hushed, RJ brushes him away to maintain his pleasant staredown of the fascination on-screen. "We make exceptions…"
The fingers on Verne's hand squeeze harshly on the mass of his own forehead.
All heads pop out one-by-one from a row of small shrubs and bushes lining the right of the back door up against the orange brick wall making the backdrop. Jefferson's. The damage left by the monster himself in a valiant fight had left one hinge of the back door torn loose.
"New plan!" RJ declares. "We're stealin' the wagon back."
Oxygen only depletes with every ridiculous, hopeless laugh Verne musters. By this point, the fatigue of nightfall could already push him to the edge of the cliff into defeat. "They wouldn't just LEAVE it-"
There the wagon sits on the leftmost edge of the patio, illuminated faintly by attractive light overhanging the square pad. The 3 porcupine kids hop out in an instant, racing to be the first to be the hero reclaiming the prized possession.
"See that, Verne? We feed on their stupidity," RJ makes it clear to him. "If PB n' J are the middle-aged couple of the symbiotic world, us 'n humans are the soulmates."
"Now WUT kinda 'middle-aged couple' we talkin'?" Stella meanders up close, loose waist ready to rest her fists to interrogate.
"The smiling ones from the stock images."
Too close for comfort in the same fashion is Verne, the harsh tip of a finger felt stabbing up at the bottom of RJ's chin. "Enough with the stock images!" In an unreserved volume he speaks, loud enough to address the entire group even when not directed as such a gesture. "Now yooou listen to me, RJ."
Stella, Tiger, and the porcupines stand beside Verne in defense, Stella crossing her arms. At the ready for one long lecture of their own.
Blurred behind them comes the image of a blonde-haired, gray-suited woman sneaking her head out from the side of the house on the left, separated from the yard by the gate of the metal fence. Even in the dark of night her shades remain glued onto her face, masking the occupant of the investigation. At the immediate sight of the animals treating themselves to the sitting duck, she rushes to whip out a shiny flip phone, encased in black, on cue. Buttons make beeps from all the urgent dialing, interest still sternly on the intruders.
She plants the phone onto her ear with energy, tapping a pointy nail urgently on the corner of the wall's brick. The phone plays its deep ringing tone.
Riiing.
Riiing.
Riiing...
